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The Museum’s Collections document the fate of Holocaust victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others through artifacts, documents, photos, films, books, personal stories, and more. Search below to view digital records and find material that you can access at our library and at the Shapell Center.

Dr. Eduard Wirths was born September 4, 1909 in Geroldshausen, a small village near Wuerzburg in southern Germany, the oldest of three boys. Though Catholic, the family had socialist leanings. Yet while in college Wirths became attracted to Nazism. He joined the SA in 1933 and the SS in 1934 and volunteered serve in the Thuringian State Office for Racial Matters. He initially served as a combat physician in Norway and Russia, but after suffering a mild heart attack he left the front lines to work in a series of concentration camps. He first served in Dachau and Neuengamme before being appointed chief physician at Auschwitz on September 6, 1942 where he oversaw some twenty SS physicians, dentists and medical personnel. Though tasked with eradicating a typhus epidemic, Wirths also participated in selections on the ramp and abetted medical experimentation on Jewish female prisoners from Block 10. However he also protected prisoner inmates working in the camp. In September 1944, Eduard Wirths was promoted to the rank of Sturmbannfuehrer (major). After the evacuation of Auschwitz in advance of its capture by the Red Army, Wirths was transferred to Dora Mittelbau where he served as the chief medical officer until April 1945. Dr. Wirths committed suicide on September 20, 1945 after his capture by the British.

Learn about over 1,000 camps and ghettos in Volume I and II of this encyclopedia, which are available as a free PDF download. This reference provides text, photographs, charts, maps, and extensive indexes.